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06/27/2004: "Laszlo/ LinkBlox, and Why I'm Not Using It (yet)"
I've been aware of the Laszlo Presentation Server for a while, and went to a presentation they did for the Silicon Valley Java User's Group (thanks again for the pizza). I've always thought it was a cool idea. In its current state of being, Laszlo is basically a neat way to convert XML and Javascript into a Flash 5 compatible movie.
My friend Andrew loves it. In fact, that's well understated... he REALLY loves it. (Take a gander at the demo apps at MyLaszlo to see what I mean.)
I decided that I didn't care for their then-ambiguous licensing, so I kinda lost interest. I haven't looked at their licensing scheme recently, though the last I recall is that a server license was in the neighorhood of $2,000/cpu. Kinda reasonable for what it does, but out of my reach for sure... especially when I can buy Macromedia's Flash MX2004 Professional for about 2/3 less.
The other reason I'm not using Laszlo is because they promised me a freakin' t-shirt for registering and posting in their forum.
Do I now have a Laszlo t-shirt? Nope. 
MyLaszlo is a service that hosts non-commercial Laszlo apps for free, but I'm not that interested in using it, because the licensing/rights management isn't to my liking. Sensing a trend?
Anyhow...
I decided to check out LinkBlox, which is an application created using Laszlo. It's pretty hip. I signed up to use it (free), and converted my links to OPML (an XML schema that's really easy. Using the sample file as a starting point, it took me 10 minutes to convert my links. Very simple). Here's what I came up with:
Pretty nifty, considering that all I had to do was create a simple text file and dump a single line of HTML into the page I wanted to use the LinkBlox on. The colors are user-definable, so if you don't like my color choices, rest assured... you don't have to use them.
However... (You knew that was coming, no?)
My initial test failed miserably because, like a dunderhead, I made a simple error or two in the XML file. LinkBlox didn't bother to tell me why it wasn't displaying any of the data I was providing it. It took a minute or two to realize my error and correct it, and then, blamo... it worked great... until I realized that it wasn't displaying all the links I was providing it. It desperately needs a scrollbar.
LinkBlox is a great idea... it just needs a little more love. If you don't mind that it won't display all your links, then get yourself over to sign up to use it. It's hip.
And one last thing... just because Andrew is my friend doesn't mean that he agrees with my thoughts about this stuff.
My opinions are my own.
